What does it mean to know the city: to trace, to follow, even to be lost in it or blur with it? How does the urban landscape inform the narrative? What narratives can the city give birth to? This class will look at various texts of investigation and detection that are inalienable from their surroundings. Authors will include Poe and Baudelaire, Pushkin and Conan Doyle, Dickens and Dostoevsky, Blok and others. Cities will include St. Petersburg, London, and Paris.